


On Tying Knots

by Alethia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Banter, Brotherly Bonding, Gen, High School, Pre-Canon, Prom, Tuxedos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-24
Updated: 2006-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alethia/pseuds/Alethia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The issue is that you’re a bitch and also, you should give Melissa a little of the Winchester lovin,’ if you know what I mean.”</p>
<p>Sam blanched. “Oh, how I wish I didn’t.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Tying Knots

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in Sam's senior year of high school. Originally posted on LJ [here](http://alethialia.livejournal.com/203203.html).

Sam was…really having a tough time with this. On the surface, it seemed simple enough: tie a tie. Not a big deal.

But obviously the world hated him because he could not get the stupid thing to work and he had to get out of here before Dad came back, but he couldn’t go to the house they were all meeting at until he tied the stupid thing and the instructions he’d printed off the Internet were completely useless.

The world hated him; this was the only conclusion.

“Hey, lookin’ good there, Sammy!” Dean sauntered in, a bag of Cheetos in one hand, a beer in the other, smiling that smile that said Sam wasn’t gonna get out of here unscathed.

Hated. Him.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Sam grumbled, still trying to fix the unevenness of the bowtie. He growled and did _something_ and the ends suddenly flopped loose, falling to trail around his neck like a dead snake. 

At least the damn thing couldn’t _bite_ him. Although he probably shouldn’t count on that. The world did hate him, after all.

Dean waved his beer in that dismissive way he had, like none of these temporal matters could touch him: “I left early. I swear, I could do as much work in a day as five of these guys…but why bother?” He leaned against the doorframe and took Sammy in. 

Sam shifted, knowing he looked ridiculous and big in the tiny, ill-lit bathroom, the cracked mirror bisecting his reflection. God, he couldn’t wait to get out of here.

“Whatcha doin’?” Dean asked, taking a pull from the beer and then shaking out the last of the Cheetos into his mouth. He chewed noisily, meeting Sam’s eyes expectantly in the mirror.

“Attempting to tie a bowtie.”

“And succeeding, I see. Nah, I meant why do you look like that?” He gestured with the bottle, indicating Sam’s…body? Maybe?

“Well, see, when two people love each other very much and they want to have a baby together, they—”

Dean cuffed him upside the head with the hand that held the now-empty Cheetos bag and Sam shrank away, trying to flatten his hair and turning to see if there was any Cheeto dust left behind. “Hey! Quit it, would you? I’m already running late.”

“Well, I would if someone wasn’t being such a smartass.”

“You’re so—I’m going to Prom, all right?”

Dean blinked and then a smile started to grow on his face, tinged slightly orange but that was Dean for you. “Aww, little Sammy’s all growed up!”

“Shut up,” Sam said, stubbornly starting back up with the tie. He could do this.

Dean balled up the Cheeto bag and made a—really easy, let’s face it here—shot to the bathroom trashcan. Which was in desperate need of being emptied but it was _Dean’s turn_ , dammit. 

Not that he was thinking about such things. No, Dean had more important things on his mind, like getting in a few digs. “No, it’s cute, really. Hey, who’d you pay to go with you?”

“Her name is Melissa and I didn’t pay her anything.”

Dean waved his hands, impatient for him to continue with the story. If he didn’t, Dean would just make this even more unbearable, so he might as well.

He didn’t have to be happy about it, though. “She asked me,” he bit out.

There, he’d said it, let the mocking commence.

Dean broke out into what could only be called a shit-eating grin, right before he doubled over, laughing his ass off.

Obviously, if the world didn’t hate him, he’d have had his tie tied a half hour ago, he would have been gone before Dean got back—Darren totally would have picked him up—and he wouldn’t have had to endure this maltreatment at Dean’s hands. But the world hated him, so of course none of that actually happened.

Sam just gritted his teeth and folded one end to form the front base loop. The theory was sound…it just wasn’t working out so well in practice. Hell, he was probably going to get mocked once he did show up—tragically late—for having a wrinkled bowtie. That was if his date hadn’t locked herself in a bathroom in a fit of melodrama, crying about how she’d been abandoned and she’d gotten all dressed up and _everything_.

He couldn’t win.

Dean had finally caught his breath, the echoes of his laughter softening to die unmourned deaths in the small room. He straightened and met Sam’s eyes in the mirror again, his gone green-green the way they did when he was happy.

Sam couldn’t help but grudgingly return the smile. Dean just had that effect on people and besides, he, well, he’d miss these—these times when it was just the two of them and they were both old enough to be equals. Things weren’t so bad then.

“So, Melissa, huh?” Dean’s tone had taken a distinctly lascivious turn and Sam just rolled his eyes as he continued to mangle his four hundred sixty-third attempt at the damn tie.

“Uh-huh.”

“She hot?”

“Amazingly hot. Because only the amazingly hot ones have to resort to asking the guys three days before.”

“Simmer down, kid, I was just wondering if there’s any chance of you getting laid. ‘Cause, I gotta say, that might be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He knew it was bait, he knew it was bait…but what were the chances of Sam resisting that one? “To _you_?” 

Zero, apparently.

“Hell, yes! You’ve been stomping around here for the last two months, bouncing between bitchy and depressed as all get out. I swear, it’s like you have permanent PMS or something and, quite frankly, I’m a little annoyed, Sam. There are supposed to be benefits to having a brother instead of a sister. Like no crying or mood swings and, you know, sex-talk and stuff.”

“How very sexist of you.”

“Hey, all I’m talking about is reality, bro, and you? Have been acting like a chick.”

“So sorry to shirk my manly brotherhood duties.”

“Damn straight. And you avoided the issue.” He stated the last so blandly that Sam had to take a moment to pick up on its meaning.

He affected mild disinterest when he did and at this point he was just stuffing the ends through each other again and again in the hopes that something came out right. It could happen. “Was there an issue? I must have gotten distracted by my chickness there.”

“The issue is that you’re a bitch and also, you should give Melissa a little of the Winchester lovin,’ if you know what I mean.”

Sam blanched. “Oh, how I wish I didn’t.”

“Not that there’s been much Winchester lovin’ since you’re a monk in training and Dad—hey. Does Dad know about this?” Dean had gone still, like this was something crucial, some clue to something he was working out in his head and man, maybe Dean did have a point because Sam’s mood shifted like _that_.

“Guess he does now.” He sounded petulant and defensive and, yes, bitchy and he _hated_ it, but he couldn’t seem to stop. And _always_ because of Dad.

Really couldn’t wait to get out of here. He needed some breathing room, some distance from all of this.

“Hey! Have a little respect for the brother that’s saved your life more times than you have years.” Dean sounded serious…and he did have a point

Sam met his eyes again in the mirror, but didn’t respond. Dean got what that look meant anyway, softening his stance, slumping back against the doorframe in that loose leaning thing he did.

He shook his head once, looked away, and visibly pushed past it. Sam’s fingers had gone still on his tie, just watching it happen, and when Dean looked up again you wouldn’t have even known there’d been tension before.

It was scary, that control.

He smiled fondly at Sam. “Ahh, high school rites of passage. Can’t wait for the big one—little Sammy graduating. Then we can get the hell out of here. I’m angling for Minnesota. Oh, how I do love Minnesota girls.”

Sam wasn’t really listening; he’d gone cold at the thought of moving again and it was kind of amazing he could have any kind of conversation with Dean these days. He’d decided this already, but whenever anyone mentioned the future it was all he could think.

No, he would wait until just before he left to go up to Palo Alto. That was the only way it could be. Until then…he just had to smile and nod.

“Why are you smiling and nodding at me like I’m a chick and you’re pretending you actually care what comes out of my mouth instead of what you’d like to put in it?”

And that was all he needed to snap out of his funk, turning ‘round on a dime, and man, he couldn’t wait until he could just stop and _rest_. 

But for now he had an audience and a part to play. “Ugh. There’s just always a new low with you, isn’t there?”

Dean smirked. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Sam rolled his eyes and got back to the issue at hand. Literally. The tie was still a mess of a thing, sticking out at odd angles, definitely not laying flat against the white shirt, and Sam eyed it as he would any of his mortal enemies. He would prevail.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Dean grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around, shaking his head. Sam felt a tug at his neck and he knew his last attempt had died a quick death. “This is not brain surgery, dude.” A beat. “On second thought, brain surgery you could probably do.”

Sam smiled a little, holding still as Dean’s hands worked quickly, brushing his skin every so often, little tugs and folds and loops that made no kind of sense to Sam, but apparently did to Dean.

The silence got a little accusatory, like Sam should know better, he was a _Winchester_ , they _knew_ things, and Sam couldn’t help but defend himself.

“The loops keep coming out uneven,” he protested. “Or the knot isn’t straight. Or it just falls apart.”

“Yeah, yeah. And you’re supposed to be some kind of brainiac.”

“Hey, you try flipping everything backwards in your head.”

“That’s the difference between you and me, man. I don’t do diagrams.” Dean tweaked something, twisted something, and stepped back, slapping him on both shoulders companionably. “Voila.”

Sam turned…and stared. It was exactly like in the picture, exactly what he’d been trying to produce for—he glanced at his watch—almost thirty minutes. Of course.

He turned his head, looking at it from another angle. It remained perfect. “Where’d you learn this, anyway?”

“Pretty good, huh? No worries. I always got your back.” Sam poked at the tie and it didn’t immediately unravel, so yeah, it was pretty good. Better than he’d managed.

Sam was highly suspicious. “Yeah, but who taught you how to tie a tie?” He faced Dean again, leaning back against the tiny sink and folding his arms.

“Eh, one of my girlfriends made me go to a thing one time.” His pool of girlfriends encompassing half the women between eighteen and thirty-five in a thirty-seven-state territory. Could have been anyone, really. But Dean was still talking: “Only reason I remember it is because of what we did with the tie afterwards. Let me tell you, that girl was creative. She—”

“Stop now,” Sam said, balling his fist against his forehead and squeezing his eyes shut.

“No, but you really want to—”

He shook his head, looking a point back at Dean. “No, I really don’t.”

“Sam, I’m tellin’ you.”

“Dean, I’m telling _you_.”

Dean made a disgruntled noise, shooting Sam that look that said a whole bunch of things about ruining Dean’s fun, stick-in-the-mud, blah blah blah, he’d heard it all before. But this Sam just didn’t need to hear…ever.

Sam touched the tie with careful fingertips, stroking the black material thoughtfully. Now that it was on he didn’t want to move or breathe or do anything that would bring him back to the hell of his life for the last half-hour. But it seemed secure enough and Sam resolved to stop fiddling with it since it was obviously a vengeful piece of fabric only loyal to his brother.

His brother who was smiling like he was so damn pleased with himself, so pleased he could _help_ , and Sam’s throat went a little tight at that, but he swallowed and it was gone. “Thanks.” 

It must have come through in his voice because Dean tilted his head, and gave him a funny look. “You’re welcome. Now please, for the love of my sanity, go have sex.”

Sam rolled his eyes as he walked out of the bathroom, grabbing the coat that was draped over his desk chair. “I am not having sex.”

“Well, not if you walk in with that attitude, you’re not.”

“Is this the ‘think positive’ segment of the evening?” Sam asked dryly, patting his pockets to make sure he had his wallet.

“Hey, I am nothing if not helpful.” He jumped onto his bed in a relaxed heap, landing with a satisfied sigh and folding his hands behind his head.

“Yeah, tying ties and dispensing lifestyle advice in the span of a breath. You could be your own sideshow.”

“Didn’t you know? I can be anything I want to be.” Dean had meant it as a joke…but it kind of fell flat when Sam grimaced. He wanted to tell them was the thing; he wanted to tell them and have Dad clap him on the back and Dean smile, all proud of him for doing something so huge and Sam just knew he couldn’t.

Because he knew exactly how it would go down and it wouldn’t resemble that idyllic scenario his traitorous mind had concocted to keep him awake at night. 

Even if the monsters could be real, his life was no fairytale.

“What just happened there?” Dean asked, sitting up and sweeping Sam with one of those penetrating looks that made Sam want to squirm and confess all. Great. Dean was suspicious now and that was exactly what Sam needed, Dean actually getting interested in the whys of things.

Sam pulled a smile out of his ass and faked a ‘what’s your problem?’ look. He was pretty sure it didn’t fool either of them, but, well. Distraction always worked; so did retreat: “Nothing. I—have to go. Keys?” he asked.

Dean dug them out of his pocket and tossed them over, still watching. Sam could see the moment he decided to again shake it off. It wasn’t going to keep happening, he was going to really press one of these days, but Sam pushed that thought to the back of his head. He couldn’t worry about it if he wanted to stay sane.

And then Dean’s expression went teasing again, so that was a good sign, a relief to know he hadn’t guessed. Because if he did, well, he wouldn’t be teasing.

“Now don’t go scratching my baby, all right? But there is quite the backseat.” Sam groaned and turned. Leaving seemed like a good plan. As soon as possible. Preferably before Dean broke down his resolve or had any more time to discuss his sex life.

“Oh, hey! Wait a second.” Dean flopped over his bed to rummage around under it, pulling out the odd notebook, half-eaten candy bar…pair of bunny slippers.

Uh-huh.

Suddenly there was a small, glinting something sailing at Sam’s head.

He caught it without thinking, reflexes honed after years of training, and Sam stared at the square foil packet blankly.

“You know, positive thinking,” Dean said brightly, looking up at him and grinning from where he was still sprawled all over his bed, happy again, and bright and just enjoying it all…

Sam felt his throat get tight again and he couldn’t even cover, but hopefully Dean wouldn’t notice, would just think it was the teasing. “Dean…”

“See, I always have your back.” Sam desperately stared at the condom—because he _could not_ look at Dean just then, not for anything—and Dean took it as Sam knew he would, as fear or disgust or something thankfully not what it was, letting out a frustrated grunt. “Just take it. God, you’re the tightest guy in the history of the universe.”

Sam nodded but paused at the door, looking back, noticing the way Dean’s eyes just shined at him, bright in the light from the window. “Dean, just…thanks,” he said, awkward as all hell.

“Use that and it’ll be thanks enough,” Dean said, nodding at the condom clasped tight in Sam’s hand, and he smiled. Make it into a joke, don’t really say what you mean, typical Dean

But Sam knew what it meant anyway.

“Yeah, that’ll happen.”

***

Fin. Feedback is adored.


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